Jewish Rabbis have known and utilized the technique of pitting one scripture against another for a very long time. EP Sander’s wrote: “Citing one passage against another in order to justify ignoring or disbelieving an unpalatable part of the Torah is also known. The Rabbis did not agree with another major aspect of the ten commandments: that God visits ‘the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generation’ (Exod 20.5). Against this view they could appeal to Ezekiel (Ezek. 18.1-20).” [Jesus and Judaism]
Exodus 20:5: "You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me
Ezekiel 18:20: The person who sins shall die. A child shall not suffer for the iniquity of a parent nor a parent suffer for the iniquity of a child; the righteousness of the righteous shall be their own, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be their own. [see 1-19 as well]
Are we punished for our own sins or others?
Jesus’s teaching on divorce is one instance where scripture is used against itself and as we saw above, Ezekiel seems to be at odds with not only Exodus 20:5 but several other passages in the Pentateuch about God punishing children for their parent’s sins:
Numbers 14:18: 18 ‘The Lord is slow to anger, abounding in love and forgiving sin and rebellion. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.’
Exodus 34:5-7: Then the Lord came down in the cloud and stood there with him and proclaimed his name, the Lord. 6 And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, 7 maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.”
Deut 5:9-10: for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, 10 but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.
Ezekiel’s view also has some scriptural support:
Deut 24:16: “Parents shall not be put to death for their children, nor shall children be put to death for their parents; only for their own crimes may persons be put to death.
Jeremiah 31:29-30 In those days they shall no longer say: “The parents have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.” 30 But all shall die for their own sins; the teeth of the one who eats sour grapes shall be set on edge.
We also see that in Genesis 18 God is reverently questioned by Abraham and seems unwilling to sweep away the righteous and the wicked and the Genesis flood is attributed to universal human corruption. It seems then we have competing theologies in the Bible. Ezekiel tells us as much directly. He rejects the notion that “The parents eat sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge” and the passages above where children are punished for the sins of their parents. You really must read the entirety of Ezekiel 18 to see what he is doing. It is a profound argument against such belief. It says the one who sins is the one who dies or to use a metaphor, each person reaps what they sow. Ezekiel uses three generations to build his argument. A righteous man who keeps the Lord’s decrees will surely live. If he has a son that sins that son will die. If that unrighteous son has a child who does not follow in his father’s footsteps, he will not die for his father’s sin. Oddly enough some people may have thought this was odd or unjust as Ezekiel seems to forestall or comment on an objection (18:19-20):
Yet you ask, ‘Why does the son not share the guilt of his father?’ Since the son has done what is just and right and has been careful to keep all my decrees, he will surely live. 20 The one who sins is the one who will die. The child will not share the guilt of the parent, nor will the parent share the guilt of the child. The righteousness of the righteous will be credited to them, and the wickedness of the wicked will be charged against them.
Ezekiel 18 is at odds with some of the clear statements in the Pentateuch much in the same way that Jesus was at odds with its teaching on divorce. If scripture can correct itself, then viewing it all as inerrant is ruled out by default. One would have to find “a canon within the canon” or claim “later revelation supersedes earlier revelation.” Neither solution can salvage the inerrancy of the earlier material as it is unethical and inadequate. The hearts were certainly still hard in Jesus’s case, but he nonetheless forbids divorce because that is the right thing to do (not what the Mosaic law permitted and regulated) and Ezekiel understands it is grotesquely immoral punish one individual for the sins of another. I understand that our sin has a social dimension that can impact those around us for sure, especially our families but it is petty and vindictive for God to purposefully punish our children for our sins and push it to the third and fourth generation! Imagine if a police officer had the same philosophy while monitoring traffic and doled out speeding tickets not only to the vehicle speeding, but also to the three cars behind it that were traveling at the posted speed limit. In its own way passages like Exodus 20:5 aren’t entirely bad because we often forget to read the very next verse where God shows his steadfast love to a thousand generations of those who keep his commands. Punishment to 3-4 generation but steadfast love to 1000! So even this problematic verse at least tells us that God’s love far outweighs his punitive side.